The present invention relates to a beverage bottle that is squeezable and, more particularly, to a beverage bottle that, while being squeezable, also has sufficient radial rigidity to permit hot-filling of the bottle and to prevent damage or deformation to the bottle during its handling.
Squeezable beverage bottles, though initially used primarily by bicyclists and other athletes, are now widely used primarily due to the increasing consumption of sports beverages. Such bottles are typically sized to be easily held in one hand and contain a serving size suitable for a single person. The bottle includes a recloseable valve at the top sized to be held between the consumer's lips, through which the beverage is discharged by squeezing the bottle.
There has been a proliferation of different squeeze bottle designs. However, the desire to have a bottle that is relatively easy to squeeze by the consumer in manner to control the rate at which the beverage is dispensed through the valve conflicts with the need to have a bottle that has sufficient radial rigidity—or resistance to squeezing—to withstand the rigors of filling, shipping, dispensing, etc. Specifically, the bottles are typically filled in a hot-filling operation, where the bottles are filled and hermetically sealed with liquid above ambient temperature, yet stored at ambient or refrigerated temperatures. This causes the liquid and gas headspace to contract in volume after the sealing of the bottle. Consequently, the pressure in the bottle is lower than ambient pressure, resulting in a vacuum force that tends to collapse the bottle. Additional vacuum is created during long-term storage due to the permeation of water vapor to the bottle interior. Thus, the bottles need to resist collapse due to this vacuum pressure.
Accordingly, it is an object for the present invention to provide a beverage bottle whose contains are to be dispensed by squeezing the bottle that is both relatively easy of the user to squeeze and also have sufficient radial rigidity to resist damage and/or undesired deformation.